Chapter One
Me in Hindsight ~ April
“To tattoo or not to tattoo?” Bulging biceps with roses, thorns, and ivy inked in black over tanned skin infiltrate my thoughts in intimate detail. In the middle of the chaotic, twisted flora and thistle is a simple cross. The wordsBeauty in the Brambleweave around the cross.
The warmth rising up my neck answers my question, and I type “tattoo sleeve on left arm” into Noah Ashley Ashton’s character profile using my clunky orange keyboard. If I’m getting this hot over my imaginary book boyfriend, readers will go feral. Romance consumers love a tatted-up male lead.
“Esme Lorraine Jenkins,” Crazy Colt hollers from across Main Street Coffee, the only coffee shop in the one-red-light town of Whitney, Mississippi. He pronounces my namees-mayinstead ofes-me,with a long e sound at the end. In this instance, Crazy Colt is phonetically and culturally correct, but my parents have called mees-mesince day one, so that’s my name. “Cut out that there typin’ on that loud keyboard of yours before I do somethin’ we both gon’ regret.”
I open my mouth to shout an apology when a man with a deep, throaty voice talks over me.
“Can it, Colt. You’re creating a civil disturbance,” Sheriff Vincent Hodges commands from the high-top bar by the register. He’s a tall, tanned, certified bad-to-the-bone law enforcement officer who has a jail cell with Colt’s name on it. Metaphorically, of course. His K-9, a black Doberman named Ares, sits at attention, his cropped ears perked as he glares menacingly at Colt.
“Her clankin’ is a civil disturbance,” Colt retorts, running a hand through his thin, graying hair before pulling at his well-worn T-shirt. I think he’s already slipped some of his moonshine into his morning coffee, and a hundred bucks says Sheriff Hodges will be picking him up off the street tonight. My heart goes out to the old man, but he refuses any and all direct help. As a community, we do what we can to make sure his needs are met, but at some point, people have to learn to stand on their own two feet.
Just like I had to after the accident nine months ago.
Rising from my chair, I hold up my precious, brand-new keyboard. “Sorry, Colt. Look. I’m putting it into my bag, okay?” I slip it into my pink backpack, mourning the feel of the large keys beneath my fingers and the stimulating sound it provides. I guess I’ll only get to use this bad boy at home. I should have known others wouldn’t appreciate the sound of it like I do. It grounds me when my head is too full.
“Thank yer, Meme. How’s ya mama and ‘em?” Crazy Colt goes on talking as if he didn’t just threaten to smash my new keyboard.
I take to giving the whole coffee shop—which also includes a former student of mine who works as a barista, Grannie Bertha, and a few others—a run-down of everything that happened over the last afternoon and evening.As if I hadn’t talked to this samegroup yesterday morning.I fight to keep from rolling my eyes, but a smile slips through my annoyance. I love these people and this town.
With my fun keyboard gone, I get back to brainstorming using the bland laptop keyboard.
After the new year, when I decided to write the story swirling around in my head, I began to profusely study. I’ve spent the past three months deep-diving into the inner workings of the romantic comedy when I wasn’t grading papers or lesson planning, but my devotion to devouring the genre serves as my biggest teacher. It’s a proven fact that women melt over tatted men with flirty personalities who have eyes only for their women.
I do.
Deep down all women want to be made to feel important, special, and unconditionally loved by a man.Their man.
And my man is fictional—thebestkind.
The character of Noah Ashton set up camp and brought coffee to slow roast over the fire inside my brain a few weeks after I woke up from the coma. That was almost a year ago, and even then, I knew I had the perfect male character to lead a romance novel. It still startles me how loudly he speaks to me. And he does it at the darndest times like while I’m washing dishes, doing laundry, driving, taking a shower, and the likes. Always when I’m lost in daydreams while completing mundane tasks. He never talks when I’m actually sitting down to brainstorm.
It’s nothing new, really, talking to the man who lives only within the confines of my neural pathways. I’d secretly always wanted to write a novel—which means I’ve always had imaginary people in my head—but it wasn’t in the cards for me, so I settled for teaching books to high schoolers. A small-town girl from the middle of nowhere isn’t cut from the same cloth or blessed with the same resources needed to be successful in this line of work.
At least that’s what I used to think.
Not anymore.
I lost three years' worth of my memory from the accident that broke some of my ribs, punctured my lung, and pushed me into a coma, which changes a person intrinsically. Waking up thinking you’re twenty-three when you’re really twenty-six is like trying to clear the blurry sleep out of your eyes, but no matter how many times you blink and rub, you still can’t see straight. It forces you to reevaluate the meaning and purpose of life. I asked myself questions like:What does it mean to truly live moment by moment?andDoes life only start after I get married and have kids?After taking the doctor’s recommendation and integrating myself back into my normal life as best as I could, I realized my memories probably weren’t coming back. But I wasn’t upset.
I was empowered.
I would write a dang book.
And I would start living my life despite my singleness.
I had fictional men to fall in love with. They tended to be better than the real thing, anyway. Lane Burtram taught me that lesson.
But back to my new life’s purpose: novel writing. Noah was already speaking to me, so all I needed to do was craft his leading lady. I easily decided she would be me. It’s only fitting I make my first female character based on myself since I know myself best. Plus, amnesia seemed like a good trope for me to write about since I’ve experienced it—am experiencing it.I even used my real name, Esme, since I’m publishing using anom de plume,Lorraine E. Jenkins.
Lorraine is my middle name, and Jenkins my last, so it’s not that different. But it provides enough separation from who I am versus who my author persona will become. Hopefully that will help any criticism I receive not to puncture my heart.Too much.
Exiting the character profile, I open up a new document while I take a deep breath.
It’s time.
